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Encountering China

Early Modern European Responses

Encountering China cover

Encountering China

Early Modern European Responses

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Description

Encountering China addresses the responses of early modern travelers to China who, awed by the wealth and sophistication of the society they encountered, attempted primarily to build bridges, to explore similarities, and to emulate the Chinese, though they were also critical of some local traditions and practices. Contributors engage critically with travelogues, treating them not just as occasional sources of historical information but as primary, literary texts deeply revelatory of the world they describe. Contributors reach back to the earliest European writings available on China in an effort to broaden and nuance our understanding of European contact with the Middle Kingdom in the early modern period. While the primary focus of these essays is the external gaze – European sources about China – contributors also tease out aspects of the Chinese world-view of the time, thus generating a conversation between Chinese literary and historical texts and European ones.

Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction
by Rachana Sachdev

Part 1

European Responses to Child Abandonment, Sale of Children and Social Welfare Policies in Ming China
by Rachana Sachdev

Of Golden Lilies and Gentlewomen: Constructions of Chinese Women in Early Modern European Travel Narratives
by Qingjun Li

Part 2

Earlier Moderns: The Novel Form as National Development in China and Europe
By Daniel Dooghan

“A Strong Resemblance”: Samuel Richardson, Chinese Talent-Beauty Novels, and a Secret Origin of “World Literature”
By Ning Ma

Part 3

“'Magicians, Enchanters, and Professional Crooks’: Early Modern Understandings of Daoism”
By Ronnie Littlejohn

Buddhism and Idolatry
By Terry Logan Mazurak

Bibliography

Index

About the Contributors

Product details

Published Oct 08 2012
Format Paperback
Edition 1st
Extent 218
ISBN 9781611484823
Imprint Bucknell University Press
Dimensions 9 x 5 inches
Series Aperçus: Histories Texts Cultures
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Rachana Sachdev

Anthology Editor

Qinjun Li

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